


essential nature

by etben



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Spoilers for Lies Sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 09:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17041361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etben/pseuds/etben
Summary: “So you kissed him,” Val said, “then what?”OR: three conversations and a dream (feat. Peter Grant)





	essential nature

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sophia_Prester](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Prester/gifts).



“So you kissed him,” Val said, “then what?”

“He kissed me, actually,” I said. “And then Tyburn showed up—Sir William, not Lady Ty—and he had a chariot, and we followed Chorley.” And then there was the rest of it: Chorley and Punch on the bridge, and Walbrook, and landing back in the real world, and Lesley—but she had the official reports, so she knew about that already.

“Mm,” she said, in that way she has that gives you absolutely nothing. “And how did you feel, when you saw the other Beverley?”

“Fine?” It came out more of a question than I’d meant it to, somehow. Valerie didn’t say anything, so I kept going. “It felt like a dream, kind of, when you know you’re in a certain place even though it doesn’t look anything like.” Valerie made another of those nothing-noises. “It was—good to see her, I guess? A relief.” Even though I’d never met Old Beverley before, the recognition, the hint of something familiar, had been good.

“You say ‘her’,” Valerie pointed out, after a pause. “Are they the same person?”

I shrugged. “Are Mama Thames and Father Thames the same person?” Valerie just looked at me and raised her eyebrows. “I mean, really, we don’t know. It would be easier if we could get a tissue sample or three, but somehow I don’t think that’s happening anytime soon.”

I’d meant it as a joke, but Valerie didn’t laugh. She doesn’t, usually, which is fine—I’m an acquired taste, I guess.

“But you call Tyburn ‘Sir William’, as opposed to Lady Ty,” she said instead. Are they the same?”

“No,” I said, instinctively, then stopped. “I mean, some things seem to connect,”—Sir William’s sword, for one— “but they’re different people.” I chuckled a little, thinking. “Sir William likes me a lot more than Lady Ty does, that’s for sure.”

“Hm,” Valerie said, and shifted her weight in her chair. “And how did you feel, when you saw Sir William?”

“Well, he had a Roman legion with him, so...pretty good, I guess?” Valerie just watched me, her eyes large behind her glasses, so I kept going. “I mean, I kind of know Sir William, now—I saw him when I was trapped in the subway, and then I went to him for information about Punch, right before everything kicked off.” I shrugged. “He’s a nice guy, always happy to see me. I think he’s lonely, honestly.”

“Why do you say that?”

It’s hard to describe that place, that other London, so it took me a moment to find the words. “Nothing there is quite real, I think, except him. Like, it’s all echoes of echoes, and he’s—I guess he’s an echo, too, but he’s stronger, more solid.” Valerie _hmm_ -ed again. “I think he wants to be connected to now, but can’t quite manage it on his own.” Although that raised the question of Sir William’s sword, thrust through a sniper’s chest across a city street and several centuries. Was that him, responding to Lady Ty’s rage and fear, or was it something else?

“Do you think Beverley feels like that?” Valerie asked, and I sat back in my chair, blinking.

“I—no? I mean, I don’t think so?” God, I hoped not: even in all of his glory, there was something incredibly sad about Sir William. I didn’t like to think about any part of Bev feeling like that, not even a half-forgotten dream-like white guy. “I should probably ask her about that, huh?”

Valerie tilted her head. “You certainly could,” she said. “Do you think that would be a good conversation for the two of you to have?”

I couldn’t decide what to say to that, but fortunately, our session was up, and Valerie let me go for the week.

*

In my defense, I did try to bring it up with Bev, but I couldn’t see how to do it. _Hey, babes,_ I imagined myself saying, _you know the part of you that’s a white dude from 50 BCE? How’s he doing?_ Plus we’d told both of our mums about baby Grant-Thames, estimated time of arrival sometime next spring, which meant that between her degree, my meetings with the IPCC, and a constant stream of baby-related gifts, events, and advice, we were almost as busy as we’d been while I was on duty.

Ultimately, I wound up talking to Tyburn, while the two of us were holding up a kitchen wall at one of the aforementioned events.

"How've you been?" I asked. She kissed her teeth at me, which was honestly fair. "No, I mean—how's George? Olivia?"

"She's fine," she said, looking over at where Olivia and Phoebe were giggling in the kitchen. "I haven't seen George as much as I'd like, of course, what with all of the work I've had lately." Work that she only had to do because of my colossal fuckups, she didn't have to say.

"And, ah." I swallowed. "Sir William? How's he been?"

Ty glanced over at me, one brow very slightly raised. "Fine, as far as I'm aware," she said, in a tone that invited me not to pursue the subject any further.

An invitation I promptly ignored. "How far is that, though?"

At this, Tyburn turned to face me fully. "What do you really want to know, Peter?"

"He seemed lonely, when I met him," I said, and my gaze went across the room to where Bev was lifting yet another onesie out of yet another pastel box. This one appeared to have fish on it, which would at least make a nice change from all of the ducks. "And I met Beverley—the other one, I mean—and I was just—" I looked back at Tyburn. "I wondered."

I can't say that Tyburn's face softened, but it changed, somehow, and her posture loosened just slightly. "Well, first of all, you have to realize that it's different, for her and for me.” 

“Because you’re the oldest?”

“Partly.” She sipped at her wine, something pale and sparkling that Beverley had looked at longingly when we arrived. “When I started, there was nobody except Mum, really. And Mum and Father Thames…” she shrugged. “You know how it is.”

“Capulets and Montagues?”

“Man U and Liverpool, I was going to say, but sure.” Another sip of her drink. “And back then—well.” She raised her glass. “Here’s to progress, such as it is.” She looked down into her glass for a moment, and I watched her, waiting for the rest of it.

“They like to make fun of me,” she said, suddenly. “For being culverted.” Before I could decide whether or not to acknowledge that, yes, I had heard comments to that effect— _a sewer with delusions of grandeur_ , Effra liked to say—she kept going. “But that started well before my time—he took the brunt of it, the diversion.” No question who _he_ was. “I don’t know if I can explain to you what that was like, for him, being cut off like that.”

I thought of Sir William, that aching half-there feeling of him. “Yeah,” I said. “No, I—yeah.”

“So now,” Tyburn said, “imagine me: all of sixteen, getting ready for my A-levels, and Sir William, who only wants to talk about bringing the salmon back.” Her mouth twisted. “It wasn’t pretty, and I—well.” She sipped her wine again. “I knew that I was different, that it was all different, I _understood_ , but…” she trailed off, staring at Beverley again, or maybe at her mother.

“That didn’t make it easy,” I said, quietly, and she huffed out a ghost of a laugh.

“To say the least.” Another long moment, and then she turned back to me. “All of which goes to say, if you want to know how Bev’s doing, you should ask her yourself, you pillock.”

“Thanks, Tyburn,” I said, and went to fetch her another glass of wine.

*

“Congratulations, by the way,” Beverley said, later that night. She was taking off her dress and draping it over the back of a chair, so I was distracted enough that she had to say it twice.

“What for?”

“I saw you and Tyburn,” she said. “You had a whole conversation and nobody lost any blood.” She glanced over her shoulder as she unhooked her bra. “Anything I should know about?”

“Um,” I said, and her eyes sharpened. “Nothing bad!” Which was absolutely the worst thing I could say, of course, so I gathered my courage and kept going. “Just—you know I met Beverley, right? The old one, I mean?”

She sat down on the bed next to me. “I—huh.” She tilted her head. “I did, I guess.”

“You guess?” She said it like she hadn’t known until I asked the question—was it like time travel? Had I changed something in her past?

“Peter.” Bev’s hand on my shoulder brought me back to the present. “Focus. You met Beverley?”

I nodded. “While I was falling, at the Actor’s Church. Beverley was there, and Tyburn.” And Chorley, and Walbrook, and Punch…

“Huh.” Bev shoved at my side until I moved up the bed, then tugged at my shoulder and my arms until she had us the way she wanted, spooned up together with my hands at the base of her ribcage, just where her stomach was starting to swell. “How was he?”

“Good, I think? Helped me chase Chorley, at least.” I hesitated. “And kissed me.”

“Mmm,” Beverley said. “ _Yeah_ he did.” When I didn’t say anything, she squeezed my wrist. “Are you having a freakout about that?”

“No?”

“Peter.” I didn’t have to see her face to know the look she was giving me.

“I mean, it’s you, it’s fine, I’m secure in my masculinity,” I said. “Just—is he okay?”

She shrugged, sideways. “As good as he ever is. I mean, he’s not really _there_ , not like real people, but we keep in touch.”

“What, you email? Text each other?” I huffed out a laugh into her hair. “Is he on Twitter?”

She elbowed me in the side. “We just do, is all. In dreams, sometimes, or—you know when you’ve got a problem you’ve been stuck on, and then you leave it a while, and when you come back to it, the answer’s just _there_ , like it was obvious the whole time?” I nodded. “It’s like that, I guess.” She paused. “I know what he wants and how he thinks, but it’s not, like, a conversation.” She rubbed the crown of her head against my chin. “He’s fine, Peter. _I’m_ fine.”

“Okay.” She kicked my ankle gently. “Okay! I believe you!”

“He likes you, you know.”

“Yeah,” I said, thinking back to that kiss. “Yeah, I’d figured that one out.”

Beverley giggled. “No, I mean—that too, but before that, before we were together: he liked you then, too.”

“Really?”

“He thought you were a smartarse, but he liked you.” She pressed back against me. “And more importantly, _I_ like you.”

I held her a little more tightly. “I like you too.”  
*

The dream didn’t come until the next evening. It had been a long day: being suspended from police work in no way meant I was excused from magic, so I had done several hours of my own training before spending two more coaching Abigail through the nuances of _impello palma_. She’d only knocked me over twice: I wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed in her progress or proud of my own instincts. 

Then, after a brief but thorough lunch, I’d been pressed into service by Molly and Foxglove as they reorganized the Mundane Library. I knew for a fact that either of them could easily have lifted the furniture on their own, never mind together, but it was nice to hear them laughing, even if it was at me, so I hauled couches and chairs until they were both satisfied. Round off the day with another stop off at my mum’s to pick up more baby stuff, and I was pretty much dead on my feet by the time I got home.

When I opened my eyes, I knew at once that I wasn’t awake, not really: something about the light falling across the bed, the way the curtains moved in the breeze. It was Bev’s house, but it wasn’t, in that way that things are in dreams: that wasn’t her dresser, but at the same time it was; I’d never seen those shoes before, but I knew they were hers.

And, as I discovered when I rolled over, the body curled up next to mine wasn’t my girlfriend’s, except for how it was.

“Hey, babes,” Beverley said, and leaned in for a kiss, soft and gentle and sleepy. I kissed back, letting my hand slide along the warm, pale skin of his side. “Heard you were talking about me last night.” He brushed his cheek against mine, and the prickle of his blond stubble sent a shiver down my spine. “Everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” I said, tilting my head so that he could get at that spot on my neck. “Just—it’s fine.”

“Babes.” He pulled back to look at me, Bev’s _do not fuck with me on this_ stare in a narrow white face.

I sighed. “I worry about her,” I said. “About you, about her, about both of you.” I laughed, barely. “I even worry about Tyburn, if you can believe it.”

“Well, Tyburn can be very worrisome,” he said, but I could tell he understood. “It’s—I’m not going to say it was easy,” he said, after a moment. “Especially not for Tyburn: he had first go, and it’s not like he’s the most easygoing sort to begin with.” He even shrugged like Beverley, that same loose, easy feeling to his body. “It took them a while, but they’ve got a good thing, now.” 

“And you?”

“Me?” His fingers were gentle against my cheek. “I’m fine, Peter.” His smile was nothing like Bev’s, not at all, except for the note of mischief hiding in the corners. “Bev’s a bright girl with some good ideas, and she’s not too stubborn to listen to me when she needs to. You’re welcome, by the way,” he added, with a brush of lips against my cheek. “She wasn’t half mad at you after you sent us upstream.”

“And you changed her mind?”

“I thought you had some redeeming qualities,” he said, and his hands drifted downwards to make it very clear just _what_ , exactly, those qualities were. “And of course I didn’t mind going upstream as much as she did—nice to see some familiar faces.” I wondered, between kisses, what that had been like for her: whether any of his familiarity had trickled over to her, whether it had been hard to keep things straight.

“And now?”

He sighed. “Peter, I’m _fine_. The river’s happy, I’m happy—and the river is pretty happy.” Hard not to tell, with the way he was pressed up against me, and from there I just gave into it and let the dream slide into a tangle of lips and skin and soft, familiar laughter.

I woke up panting, rocking my hips against Beverley, who laughed sleepily and said, “Oh, is _that_ what he wanted, then?” I couldn’t muster anything beyond a gasp, but that seemed to satisfy.

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, this story owes a lot to [this conversation](http://sixth-light.tumblr.com/post/180979143004/things-i-am-not-writing-because-yuletide-per-the) on tumblr, although I managed neither Peter's bisexual freakout nor any actual porn. Woe, sadness.
> 
> The River Tyburn really was once known for salmon fishing! The things we learn for fandom.
> 
> Thanks for your prompt, Sophia_Prester! I hadn't thought about Lady Ty much before I got it, but this was a lot of fun.


End file.
